Out of Place
by mercurybard
Summary: Post NFA, oneshot. Gunn begins to question how he fits in at Angel, Inc.


Disclaimer: _Angel_ belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, not me.

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There was a screech, a crash, the tinkling of shattered glass, and then more screaming. Gunn didn't even bother to look up from the newspaper that he had held open in front of him. Very TV-ish, very nifty you were trying to discreetly avoid becoming involved in the room's activities but overall, not a very good way to read the paper. The top of the pages kept flopping over, which meant he had to keep snapping them back into place. Still, it was the funnies, and it was a decent shield against…_children_.

They were all over the hotel, in every nook, every cranny. He'd opened a cupboard in the office to get his coffee mug out this morning and found one of Angel twins hiding in there. Then—thankfully after he'd finished his coffee—he found out that somebody with sticky, peanut butter-covered fingers had been playing with the computer and somehow broke Windows. "How the hell do you break Windows?" he asked himself. "Blue Screen of Death, I get, but not flat out would-not-boot the OS broken." He paused and frowned—_when the hell did I learn what an OS is?_ Maybe it had come with the Wolfram & Hart lawyer-mind download. That had faded away, mostly, over the past couple of years, but he'd still get flashes now and then, of knowledge that Charles Gunn, street thug turned P.I. should not possess within his cranium.

He lowered the paper, realizing that there was now silence in the lobby. No kids. No clients. No Illyria talking to the ficus by the door. If there was one thing he'd learned since he and the rest of the crew had been resurrected by Illyria after their big showdown with Wolfram & Hart, it was that silence when children were involved was generally a Bad Thing. He shook his head as he set the paper aside and came around the desk to investigate. He'd never understood why Angel and Wes and Spike had all felt the incredible urge to spawn when they came back to life. Sure, brimming with energy fresh from…somewhere, he'd felt like going out and spreading a few wild oats, but he'd never planned on any long term consequences for the spreading. Spike taking off for Sunnydale the minute he'd realized he'd come back as a flesh-and-blood human was understandable. Buffy Summers was there, and Gunn had seen enough pictures and sketches to know that if he'd have half a chance with her, he would have been the one hightailing it to former home of the Hellmouth. But Angel? With Faith? And then there was the weird-ass deal Wes and Illyria had worked out. Just thinking about it made Gunn want to shudder.

Coming round the front of the reception desk, he discovered just what exactly the kiddos had broken earlier. The glass door to the front of the weapons cabinet was lying in pieces on the lobby floor. "Well, so much for that…" he muttered as he skirted the mess to see if anything was missing from inside it. Buffy had insisted they install the door (which could be padlocked shut and still, technically, was) when her and Spike's oldest reached the toddling stage. Looking into the cabinet, he took stock and realized a small hand ax (a battle ax if you were in preschool, he supposed), a dagger, and a small crossbow were missing. A polished rock—one he recognized from the small, walled garden out back—lay in the bottom of the case, obviously having been used to break the door. He reached in, careful of the broken glass, and hefted it into his hand. It had probably taken both hands for Becky, Buffy's oldest, to chunk it. Even with budding Slayer strength. "Little brat," he muttered to himself. Becky was the oldest of the Angel, Investigations' Midget Mafia and, even though she only spent part of her time in L.A., she was both the brains and the leader behind most of their operations with little brother, William, as both enforcer and loyal second-in-command.

Gunn paused, rock in hand, listening. Silence still reigned, but they couldn't have gotten very far. Not without making more noise. Sure, Becky could keep them in line, but only for so long. Especially the twins. Chase and Doyle Angel were as feisty as their Slayer mother…and as loud…and as violent. In fact, a squabble was probably going to erupt very soon over the missing dagger. Both little boys had their father's love of swords…they just weren't big enough to swing them yet.

"Give!" someone squeaked with pipsqueak rage, only slightly muffled by the basement door.

Gunn was across the lobby and had the door open in four long strides. Two little three-year-old boys with dark brown hair and eyes were tussling over the still-sheathed (thankfully!) dagger. Gunn quickly relieved them of it, holding it well above their heads. Both turned to glare at him with identical expressions of miniature fury. He wasn't quite sure which was which, though he vaguely remembered Chase had an obsession with Superman and the one on the right _was_ wearing Superman underwear (the kids also took after Faith in their feelings about clothes…the less, the better). "This ain't a toy," he said, shaking it in their faces. The one on the left in the Barney the dinosaur underwear made a grab for it and missed…barely. Gunn groaned inwardly. Child of a vampire and a Slayer—he was gonna be out-classed by these squirts before they made it to preschool.

"Chase! _Doyle!_" The way Faith said the second name was just somehow much more threatening. A full-grown vamp probably would have been shaking in his shoes, but the kid in the Barney underpants just giggled and slipped past Gunn, high-tailing it to who knows where. As his attention was trying to keep up with the escapee, Superman got away too. He gave up and tossed both knife and rock to the dark-haired Slayer when she hit the bottom of the staircase. She looked down at them and sighed, "Which way did they go?"

Gunn shrugged and pointed, "I can't keep track of them. We're missing a crossbow and an ax too, if you see them."

She rolled her eyes. "Wanna help me look?" The pout she put on was enough to make a grown man drool, but Gunn shook his head and sat back down.

"Not my kids." As he turned back to "Garfield", he wondered, _how'd the crew and I get so far away from one another…again?_ It wasn't like they didn't do the same old Angel, Inc. monster-hunting, helping the helpless bit, but it was different now. Rooting out and dusting a nest of vamps had to wait an hour now, so Wes (and Fred, if it was one of her months to control the body) could go to Sophia's open house at elementary school. And customers now had to navigate their way around kiddy toys when they came to the hotel. The Hyperion looked more like a daycare now anyway. He sighed again. Today didn't seem like the kind of day to think too hard. Besides, Garfield was up to some conniving scheme.


End file.
